Saturday, July 4, 2009

Live Blogging NASCAR RaceDay on SPEED From Daytona

TDP gets lots of comments about the two hour extravaganza that is NASCAR RaceDay on SPEED.

This week, the gang is in Daytona dodging thunderstorms and dealing with the summer Florida heat. Guests on today's show will include Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

John Roberts hosts this TV series and has been working hard to keep things organized for several years now. Jimmy Spencer and Kenny Wallace began as happy panelists who offered off-beat opinions. Now, they have become characters who often play to the crowd and take themselves seriously.

In contrast to the antics of Spencer and Wallace are Hermie Sadler and Wendy Venturini. These two reporters have done an outstanding job this season of covering the garage and grid before each Sprint Cup Series event.

Venturini was originally all alone on this show and made the most of this TV exposure. At that time, RaceDay ran right up until thirty minutes before the race start time. Now, the show ends almost two hours before the races start.

Sadler was added and the problem of covering the big infield area was solved. This team offers good humor and solid reporting. In contrast, Spencer and Wallace have been struggling with their roles.

It should be interesting to see how things flow at Daytona. Spencer often pushes himself to talk about issues in the sport without keeping his own history in perspective. This season, Wallace takes every opportunity to speak directly to the camera in rather bizarre monologues.

The idea of RaceDay was to have fun, offer interviews and set-up the Cup race that was to come. When SPEED expanded the show to two hours in length, the production team had to come up with a lot of new content. Enter Rutledge Wood. His role has swung from class clown to feature reporter and back to goofball. One wonders when Wood will get an opportunity to play reporter and put his own personality into a feature.

It is hot in Daytona and two live hours should be a tough task. The threat of afternoon thunderstorms will only complicate matters for a show that takes place on an outdoor stage. RaceDay starts at 4:30PM ET on SPEED.

This post will serve to host your comments about RaceDay from Daytona. To add your opinion, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting. Thanks for taking the time to stop by, hope you are enjoying this holiday weekend.

Dewpoint is 78 right now, that is unbelievably high, add that to the 74% humidity and you have a storm waiting to unleash.....The atmosphere can't handle that much moisture......Probably get a "popcorn" T-Storm, but shouldn't last long

What I wanna know is if there will be talk of the start and parkers? Either pre-race or during the race. Its a crime that teams like Papis that really want to race and compete get aced out by the Blaneys and Nemachecks who will only park it.

@Nan--yup and Mad Max even tweeted about it. He's fine with the rain washing out quals and missing the race because that's what happens when you're new and only attempt a handful of races. But at the same time he's pissed because he knows they would have made the race and the S&P cars will be in there run their few laps and collect a check.

Sure he may have been several laps down and 30th something but he's out there to LEARN and get as much 'sperience as he can. And he knows short of an accident or mechanical issues he's going to be there in the end.

It was real nice of him the other night he took out gosh about 3 hours or so answering our questions on Twitter. He's hoping to do it again in the future.

About Mikey's announcement--yes I heard what JD has heard. The only "unknown" hanging was about BPS it was leaning towards them not going but it wasn't settled yet.

Whatever happens with JTG/Daughtery and Marcos I hope that things workout for Marcos. I don't want him to be relegated to a R&D car, he's done quite well this season and it would break my heart to see him struggle "suddenly" after going to a new team. I hope if the rumors of him going to Smoke happen but that Smoke leaves him on the same level as him and Ryan and any R&D he gets from Hendrick.